Chicago woman calls for sex strike to stop gun violence

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A South Side woman is on a mission to help stop the violence in Chicago by calling for a sex strike.

It may sound outlandish, but this isn't the first time such an idea has been raised. It's even the premise of the new movie "Chi-Raq".

With Chicago reeling from an autumn of gun violence, seeing a mostly-male crowd camped out for a new shoe store recently left April Lawson enraged.

"You're watching these guys just like buying gym shoes and carrying on like life is normal," Lawson said. "Then I saw the trailer to 'Chi-Raq'."

The new Spike Lee film is about a plan by neighborhood women to withhold sex until gun violence ends.

"We're going to make sure these fools put down these guns," a character in the trailer says.

Lawson, a mother and activist from Auburn Gresham, started an online petition asking women to sign onto this pledge:

"I vow to stay celibate until black men organize and create a strategy to keep the peace in our neighborhoods," Lawson read.

What "Chi-Raq" and Lawson are proposing is nothing new. The film, in fact, is based on an ancient Greek fable. And in recent years, similar boycotts in other countries have been used to promote social and political causes.

"If you decide to silently protest," Lawson said. "It might get them to think."